The author, Marilyn Copper distinguishes the types of writers into two types: traditional and organic. A traditional writer according to the author is a writer who are not in control of their writing, they follow a more structured set up and do what is expected of them, they do not attempt to blur the boundaries with their writing styles. They are the typical of students, actually traditionalists are common from where I am from in Guyana. We like do everything in a structured way, it may take a while for us to do the task as hand since we also believe in the saying "Slow and steady wins the race and slow down and take your time and do it correctly the first time". In Primary Three we had a class called Composition and we were always given a prompt and the teacher always told us what exactly he or she wanted and the students followed. I do even remember in Art Class we were specific instructions to draw a certain event and what color and materials to use. There was always a right and a wrong way to do art and write. However, this method is not that horrible in my opinion because although we were limited by a prompt or specific there was always opportuntities to blur the boundary and because we are individuals naturally all of our pieces whether it was an Art project or Writing composition were significantly different. One's individual self will always add to the limitations of a traditionalistic society. An organic intellectual however is a writer who is the agent of his writing, the author describes them as "agents of change...they develop through their fusion theory and practice and... critique of the common sense of their group." The organic intellectual is more of the idea of what the writer center wants to develop and protray but it may take a while to get used to this more liberal/ free spirited way of thinking about student writers. This concept always follows with the idea of having the writing tutors collaborate with their tutees, writing is not a task it is a talent and a craft and therefore the idea is not to give it structure and limitations but allow the student to explore and express their views in a welcoming environment.
This leads to Copper's ideal of making the writing center as a type of home away from home for the student writers. Writing should not be intimidating and students should be able to come to their tutors and feel right at home. The writing center should also be able to correct anything that may hinder the writer's ability to produce pieces worthy of the term, great. These centers are empowerment sources for students to be the agents of their papers. The tutor should only be a resource, the guide for the student writer; they should be able to help the student writer in such a way that they will know what mistakes not to make on their paper. The notion that the writing tutors are "paper fixers" is a myth; the tutor only makes suggestions and protects the tools and strategies for writing great papers. Tutors are not to criticize. Writing in the writing center is a collaborative effort.
I like the idea that the writing center should be the form of home away from the dorm/home but the only concern is that students may not able to see this perspective. Like the author said in this article students care about the grade and they do have the time to come to the writing center to feel like they are at home, they come to the writing center expecting the tutor to fix their paper to what the professor would like. A good majority of students at this school are probably the traditional intellectual type, they want to hear the phrase, “great paper” but they don’t want to formulate and strategize and explore their writing skills; they want whatever is going to get them the grade they feel they deserve. Also I find it hard to believe that a tutor would not find it easier to just fix a students paper especially if the student is not open to the longer process of learning how to write instead of learning to write that particular paper.
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